With just six weeks left until the start of school, the Beaufort County School District has been hard at work training new bus drivers and designing new routes. They assumed those roles this year after ending their contract with private bus provider Durham School Services.

"We're taking the whole transportation over, so there's a lot of stuff we have to do," said new Director of Transportation Kerry Mayo.

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The district will also have to hire all new bus drivers since their previous drivers were employed and provided by Durham.

"Right now, we're at 164 drivers. We still have more applicants to process. We're training drivers right now and after reviewing the applications, we're going to be doing another class here in the next few weeks," Mayo said.

The district has also leased 40 Thomas School Buses to replace the buses provided by Durham.

"We're very comfortable where we want to be, in, not only hiring drivers, but hiring monitors. I've hired my staff as well so everybody's on board and putting pieces together and getting ready for school to start up on August 15," Mayo said.

But there's still work to be done. Bus Router and Assistant Director of Transportation Scott Richard is working on designing new routes.

"We use a Versatrans routing system, and what you're looking at is a map of the boundaries and the zones of Beaufort County," Richard said.

Currently, he's working on designing new routes for H.E. McCracken Middle School which will become a traditional sixth-through-eighth grade middle school this year.

"They've got now where McCracken and Bluffton Middle School were riding together. Now they're going to be separate, with separate boundaries, so I have to split those up and set them up into different boundaries so each school will have their own buses," Richard said.

He also needs to accommodate Bluffton's new May River High School which is opening this year.

"I'll add two to three routes at May River to cover the student population that they have here," Richard said.

The District is using the same software Durham used to change as little as possible. Richard said he hopes to finish designing the routes by July 22 to have them available for parents to see.